Everything Ends
by TrenchcoatsAreSexy
Summary: Jesse leaves Walt behind - or tries to, anyway.


Everything Ends

Jesse makes the decision almost as soon as he hears the news. The hurried news, the frightened news on the other side of the phone.

Andrea's news. Jesse can't respond at first, but he rolls it over in his mind – it's something he never really thought possible, considering how day-to-day he's been living lately. How he managed to get back from Mexico alive still somewhat escapes him, the dulled rush of cheating death as familiar as the constant Spanish he'd encountered was foreign.

And now this. Potentially the only thing more foreign. He knows that he can do this no longer, and it's ironic to him that the very thing that drove Mr. White into this business, well, part of it at least, is what is driving Jesse out.

It almost feels like a betrayal when he tells Mr. White, as it makes their constant break-ups, even their brutal fist-fight of a few months before, pale in comparison because this is forever. They'll never cook together again and that shouldn't hurt Jesse as much as it does.

When he breathes the words in a constant chatter, an unending spiel, he first expects Mr. White to laugh at him, figures he's entitled to it if he does.

"I'm leaving. I don't know where I'm going to go. Andrea's pregnant. I don't want – it's a girl," he cuts off hurriedly enough, not sure if that detail mattered, thinking that Mr. White may interrupt to ask who Andrea is again. But Jesse will have a little girl, just like Mr. White's little daughter, Holly who he's never met and never will meet. "I can't risk my life every day just to turn a profit anymore," the words sound weird and he's probably stolen them off a movie he's watched but he keeps going, "It's not worth it." Jesse swallows, his eyes not leaving his mentor's. "I'm sorry." And he is. He knows he is letting Mr. White down, and this man was his family before Andrea was.

"I respect that, Jesse," Mr. White replies after a long while, and that's when Jesse knows it's really over, because if it wasn't, Mr. White would be calling him an idiot and a screw-up, telling him he needs to stay.

Instead he knows – he knows that his adopted son has grown up, somehow. And he knows that this will be the last time that he sees him.

And he needs to end it on some kind of positive note.

"Good luck, Jesse." The first time he's ever said those words, and the last.

* * *

><p>Walt and Skyler receive an envelope in the mail, with "Jesse P." and a hastily scribbled P.O. Box number in Philadelphia as the return address.<p>

Inside is a photograph of Jesse, smiling wider than Walt thought possible, his arm slung around the young Andrea, who Walt can't stop thinking reminds him of Jane. Andrea is holding a baby in her arms, and in front of Jesse is a young boy, six or seven.

Walt flips the photo over and reads the inscription on the back: "Jesse, Andrea, Brock + Mina, 01/20/09."

A note falls out of the envelope, and Walt picks it up. It reads:

_Hey Mr. White,_

_It's me. Jesse. I just wanted to keep you updated on what's been happening ever since I left._

_I live in Philadelphia now. We have a nice house, it's near the Art Museum and everything. I'm going to start college soon, actually – you're probably surprised. _

_Me and Andrea's daughter was born on December 2__nd__. Her full name is Tomasina Jane Pinkman, but we call her Mina for short. Andrea and I got married, too. _

_I hope you + your family are okay. Write me back + let me know._

_Jesse_

Walt doesn't write back, but he keeps the note and the picture too, noting how much Jesse's little girl resembles him already, with her wide blue inquisitive eyes. He tries not to think about how the two people she is named for are two people whose deaths are on his head.

* * *

><p>It's Skyler who calls Jesse. She finds it only appropriate.<p>

"Walt passed away," she says softly, as soon as he answers the phone. She would have thought, if she had been predicting this years ago, that she'd be sobbing, but it all seems so unreal, like she will turn around and Walt will still be standing there, wondering who she's calling.

Jesse doesn't answer on the other end, and if it weren't for the lack of a dial tone, she'd be convinced that he had hung up.

"I'm sorry," he stammers out finally. "When's the service?" He doesn't expect Skyler to tell him, accepts it as another funeral he won't be at, like Combo's and then Jane's, hears the words in his head that _You know how it would look if you were there._

"It's this Friday." It's Tuesday, today. "I'd like you to be there."

Those unexpected words push Jesse into motion. After he stammers his assent and tells her goodbye, Jesse gathers his best suit (which he'd bought to make him look more like someone who would normally own a huge five-bedroom house in the city) and buys plane tickets online. In the midst of the activity, Andrea catches him by the arm and insists on coming along, bringing the kids too, even as she acknowledges that she doesn't understand Jesse's relationship with Walt and figures that he is, perhaps, an old family friend.

* * *

><p>They depart for Albuquerque on Thursday night, checking into an inconspicuous but upscale, or at the least middle scale, hotel. This is not one of the dives Jesse is used to, where overdoses are common and go undiscovered for some time, and where prostitutes peddle their wares in the halls, going from door to door like an unlucky college student suckered into a summer selling knives.<p>

He lets himself wonder if Wendy is still out there on the streets of Albuquerque, still hooking to support her own kid. She'd been loyal to Jesse when she didn't have to be, maybe he could… maybe he could try and send her some money, if he knew where to send it and could keep it out of the wrong hands. Maybe he'll figure it out.

That night, Jesse and Andrea barely talk; she has never understood just how important Walter White is and was to him because he has never told her, couldn't tell her if he wanted to because there's no explaining for people who weren't there. When Brock asks who this funeral is for, how they know this man, Andrea just whispers, "One of Jesse's friends. His old teacher."

* * *

><p>They are among the first to arrive at the funeral home and they immediately see Skyler, standing near an array of framed photos of Walt with his family. Next to her is Walt's son, who must be – Jesse does the math – a junior or senior in high school now. Skyler's leading a toddler girl with one hand, and Jesse wonders whether this would be Mina, at his own funeral, if he hadn't gotten out when he did. That thought doesn't make it feel like any less of a betrayal, though – they were supposed to be partners until the end. They should have gone out in a blaze of glory together, going over the waterfall fighting against the cartel or some other enemy. With Gus and Mike in their corner, somehow – no, Jesse won't think of them now, he won't think of Mexico. He closes his eyes, opens them again, and approaches Skyler.<p>

"Mrs. White," he says quietly, "I'm sorry."

"Thank you for coming, Jesse." She lets go of the little girl; Jesse tries to recall her name – Holly, that's it, Holly – to shake Jesse's hand, just as Mr. White's son – Walt Jr., how could Jesse forget _that_? – looks at him with an odd sense of recognition.

"Jesse," he repeats. "So you're Jesse. My dad mentioned you once." The words are said without the boy's trademark stutter, which adds a certain coolness to them that Jesse isn't sure how to respond to.

"It's nice to meet you," he replies stiffly.

"Is this your family?" Skyler breaks in, trying desperately to get rid of the noticeable tension.

"Yeah," Jesse says, as eager to change the subject. "This is my wife, Andrea – and these are Brock and Mina." Skyler shakes Andrea's hands and forces a smile at the kids before the sound of a cane clinks behind them and the group turns to see Hank, walking side by side with Marie. Jesse gulps and looks somberly at both of them.

"Um, Hank," Skyler begins, "I believe you know Mr. Pinkman. He heard and came to pay his respects." Hank clicks the cane a moment, and that moments hangs in the air before he responds; everyone's hanging on it at one, knowing that this could turn ugly extremely fast.

"Jesse Pinkman! I didn't even recognize you!" Hank tries desperately to sound his usual boisterous self, to keep the discomfort out of his voice. His dealings with Jesse in the past had threatened to wreck his career with the DEA before his shooting effectively did, at least for the foreseeable future. But in just a year – had it been only that long – Pinkman's head was shaved now, something that would normally come off as an attempt to look more bad-ass but on him somehow had a sobering effect on his appearance. Most unlikely, Hank finds, is the fact that he's got a wife and two kids beside him.

Andrea smiles over at Hank.

"Oh, you know Jesse?" she inquires, missing the look of dread that her husband is shooting her.

"Yeah, we meet a few times," Hank replies quickly with a dismissive tone, making a brush-off motion with his right hand. There's a silence – Marie is staring back and forth at the two men, looking as if she's brimming to say something but thinking better of it.

"I'm Andrea Pinkman," Andrea cuts in, extending her hand to shake Hank's.

"Hank Schrader," he replies, and gestures in Marie's direction. "And my wife, Marie."

"It's nice to meet you."

The introductions continue as such until the service begins. It's sparsely attended; none of Walt's old colleagues from the high school are there, and his mother was too ill to travel. Gretchen and Elliot are absent, and Skyler hadn't even bothered to call them and let them know. Skyler's mother had called and left a message with condolences and love to "the kids", saying she couldn't attend because she was en-route to Bermuda.

The group, Skyler realizes, consists almost as much of Jesse's family as of her own.

When the service is over, Skyler offers Jesse and his family their house to stay in – Jesse thinks it over, but finds it too ironic considering it was the house he had sworn to stay away from no matter what. To visit it now will be to snub his nose at Mr. White's rules, to throw them back into his face when there was nothing he can do about it. He declines the offer.

After Jesse leaves to fly back to Pennsylvania, Hank comments to Skyler about how he seems to have gotten himself together.

"Never thought I'd see the day."

* * *

><p>Jesse attends Temple University, majoring in Chemistry. On the first day in lab, his bubbly blonde partner remarks, "How'd you get so good at Chemistry?"<p>

The professor, who is also Jesse's beleaguered advisor, is impressed too, but doesn't mention how Jesse's lab skills are in such stark disarray to the horrendous grades on the young man's high school transcript. He assumes that Jesse got himself in order somewhere along the lines, and doesn't question the fact that paperwork for the same student arrives with a host of different names and addresses – a Jesse Pinkman from New Mexico somehow bleeds into a Jesse White from Virginia and then a Jesse Pinkman, yet again, from somewhere in North Dakota and then Montana.

The bubbly blonde girl expects an answer; maybe she wants help on the upcoming tests, maybe she wants to know his secret. In any event, she's leaning on him in a way that makes him uncomfortable, reminds him of girls like the neighbor girl whose house he climbed out of that fateful day that he and Mr. White teamed up.

"Well? What's your secret? Forgive me, but you don't really look the type to be so, like, good at science and all."

Jesse thinks to himself that he learned from the best, but at a cost he couldn't explain even if he wanted to. In reply, he only smiles.

* * *

><p>He's thirty-five and preparing to receive a Ph.D. in physical chemistry (after five years of research and asshole advisors who laid all the work on him but tried to take all the credit) when he decides to talk to his parents.<p>

Brock is seventeen, Mina is ten, and "the twins", Devon and Jen, are eight.

Jesse delivers the news to his family over breakfast. Brock is leaning back in his chair, gnawing on a waffle, with his headphones slung around his neck. Mina is sitting next to him and has her cell phone out and is playing some sort of a game on it, while Jen is on her third pancake and Devon is trying to keep the book he's reading from being knocked over by any of the others.

"My parents are coming to visit," he tells them. It's too weird to think of calling them Grandpa and Grandma Pinkman or something like that, considering none of them have ever met them or even know much about them. The only photo Jesse has of any of his family before Andrea is one of him as a teenager, holding a baby who he has explained is his little brother (and therefore their uncle), Jake. Unfortunately, Jake will not be accompanying the Pinkmans in their trip – he is away at college, somewhere in Connecticut, studying music.

"Wow," Jen speaks up, stabbing her waffle with the plastic fork. "What are they like?"

"How come we've never seen them before?" Devon chimes in.

"They live very far away," Andrea explains.

"In New Mexico," Brock chimes, as he's the only one who remembers those days.

"How far away is that?" Devon asks.

"Really far," Jesse replies – he doesn't know exactly, which makes him feel like maybe he isn't ready for this, to be Dr. Pinkman and to be teaching other people what the right answers are.

"Hey, Dad?" Devon asks after a moment.

"Yeah?" Jesse moves his chair slightly and slides over his coffee.

"How come my middle name's Walter? Some guy in school said I have a nerdy middle name." Jesse chortles, and Andrea rolls her eyes.

"Walter's the name of an old friend of your father's," she explains.

"How come I have a nerdy middle name?" Devon presses.

"We could have just not given you a name at all," Andrea teases. "How would you like that?"

"That's what happened to Charles Manson," Brock chimes in, "He was born as No-Name Maddox." Andrea rolls her eyes again.

"If you spent half the time studying as you do reading crime books, you wouldn't be repeating senior year," she warns him.

"Was your friend Walter old?" Devon asks Jesse.

"Ancient," Jesse replies, "Eat your pancakes."

* * *

><p>The elder Pinkmans marvel at their son's hidden and unlikely success story; the son they'd written off as not living past thirty somehow has a nice house in the Northeast with a tree, a swingset, a patio and a trampoline.<p>

"I have to say I'm shocked. An academic career and three children?" Mrs. Pinkman gushes.

"Four," Jesse corrects.

"How did you achieve all this?" The Pinkmans quickly go from proud to suspicious.

"I worked part time for this fried chicken place. When the owner died, he left me shares. I kept my eye on the stock market, bought low and sold high."

Part of it's true.

* * *

><p>Dr. Jesse Pinkman begins his first class at Temple University by walking through the door, walking up to the board and then, if out of nowhere, taking a beaker and using it to make a solution burst into flame.<p>

"Hi everyone. I'm Dr. Pinkman and this is General Chemistry I. If you were looking for Basketweaving 101, you are in the wrong place, but you might have noticed that already. Now, pop quiz," even from a college crowd, he can feel the groans, "Chemistry is the study of what? And before some smart-ass says 'chemicals', the answer is no." A few students in the front chuckle at that. "Chemistry is the study of matter. Of change. Sound boring? Yeah, it does – until you realize that everything," Jesse taps the board, the desk, the computer, "is matter. Everything is changing. Nothing stays the same forever." He smiles sadly at how true that comment is. "Everything is in constant motion, and everything ends – but nothing does, because it's converted into something new. Something different. And that's why chemistry is exciting. Or it isn't. But here we're going to pretend that it is, because that's what this class is. Don't think you can just sit back and not pay attention, because I don't accept half-measures here." He pauses and smiles, rolls back his shoulders and thinks that maybe he can do this right.

He runs through roll call, and lingers for a moment when he gets to the name of "Holly White".

The young blonde in the front row, who has black glasses magnifying bright blue eyes, raises her hand.

"Here," she chimes. He puts it to the back of his mind – what are the chances? And after all, it's a very common name.

He wonders again when he's assigned as her advisor and he sees that her home address is in New Mexico. Not in the Whites' old house, but still…

* * *

><p>"Dr. Pinkman," she tells him the second class. "I missed what chapters we were supposed to read for tonight."<p>

"Three and four," Jesse replies, wishing students would read the syllabus that he had taken time to make up for them. He's ready to just let her go, but as she turns to leave, he adds, "Hey, this may seem like a weird question, but… was your father a man named Walter White?" A look of surprised crosses her face before she nods.

"Yeah." He resists the thought that runs inexplicably through his head – _so was mine. _

"I knew him," he says instead.

"Wow," Holly replies, "Small world, huh?"

"Do you take after him, with Chemistry?" _Or in other ways. _

"I guess we'll find out," Holly teases, "I have to take this class to be a nurse. I don't really know anything about it." She turns to leave again, but stops, laying one elbow on a lab bench. "Hey, Dr. Pinkman – how well did you know him?"

"Pretty well." _Better than anybody._

"Could I come by your office sometime and you could tell me about him?" Her face brightens out of the discomfort of before. "I'm sure you have… stories."

"I do," Jesse replies, "And sure. Anytime." As she walks out the door and waves, he hopes it's not before he can figure out a Walter White story that he can tell her.

* The End *


End file.
